Three fundamental types of Buddhism preceded Zen in Japan: the early scholarly sects which came to dominate Nara; the later aristocratic schools whose heyday was the noble Heian era; and, finally, popular, participatory Buddhism, which reached down to the farmers and peasants. The high point of Nara Buddhism was the erection of a giant Buddha some four stories high whose gilding bankrupted the tiny island nation but whose psychological impact was such that Japan became the world center of Mahayana Buddhism. The influence of the Nara Buddhist establishment grew to such proportions that the secular branch of government, including the emperor himself, became nervous. The solution to the problem was elegantly simple: the emperor simply abandoned the capital, leaving the wealthy and powerful temples to preside over a ghost town. A new capital was established at Heian (present-day Kyoto), far enough away to dissipate priestly meddling. The second type of Buddhism, which came to prominence in Heian, was introduced as deliberate policy by the emperor. Envoys were sent to China to bring back new and different sects, enabling the emperor to fight the Nara schools with their own Buddhist fire. And this time the wary aristocracy saw to it that the Buddhist temples and monasteries were established well outside the capital--a location that suited both the new Buddhists' preference for remoteness and the aristocracy's new cult of aesthetics rather than religion. The first of the Heian sects, known as Tendai after the Chinese T'ien- t'ai school, was introduced into Japan in 806 by the Japanese priest Saicho (767-822). The Tendai stressed the authority of the Lotus Sutra, which recognized the Buddha as both an historical person and the realization in human form of the universal spirit--an identity implying the oneness of the latent Buddha nature in all matter, animate and inanimate. Although the school was avowedly eclectic, embracing all the main Mahayana doctrines, it was bitterly opposed by the Nara schools, which campaigned unsuccessfully to convert Tendai novices. Saicho countered their opposition by pointing out that his Buddhism was based on an actual sutra, purportedly the Buddha's own words, whereas the schools of Nara had contented themselves primarily with wrangling over commentaries or secondary interpretations of the Buddha's teachings. Saicho also introduced the question of individual morality, a concern conspicuously absent in Nara Buddhism.